Four aspects to promote the healthy growth of the robotics industry

The 2022 World Robotics Conference, which ended not long ago , showcased the innovative applications of robots in many fields such as manufacturing, construction, medical care , agriculture, mining, logistics, etc., and became an important window for understanding the development trend of China's robotics industry.

In recent years, my country's robotics industry has continued to maintain a good momentum of rapid growth, and has achieved important breakthroughs in technology, products and scale.

Robots are known as the "crown jewel of the manufacturing industry". Their research and development, manufacturing and application have become an important indicator of a country's level of scientific and technological innovation and high-end manufacturing. According to the "China Robot Industry Development Report (2022)", it is expected that in 2022, the scale of my country's robot market will reach 17.4 billion US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 22% over the past five years.

In terms of cutting-edge innovative robotics technologies, minimally invasive medical robots, new generation collaborative robots , high-end bionic robots and other technologies remain at the international cutting-edge level, and in the future, they are expected to achieve international advanced levels in more fields such as home service robots , medical rehabilitation robots, industrial vision, and cloud service robots.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and many other ministries have also jointly issued a series of related plans, including the "14th Five-Year Plan for Intelligent Manufacturing Development" and the "14th Five-Year Plan for Robot Industry Development", giving key support to the robotics industry as a strategic emerging industry, which will play an important leading and promoting role in talent training, technological progress, and manufacturing transformation and upgrading.

While the industry and technology development are facing good opportunities, the development of China's robot industry is also facing many challenges. At the level of core technology of robots, some core technologies have not yet been effectively broken through, some key technologies have shortcomings, and the "stuck neck" phenomenon still exists; at the level of product positioning of robots, the functional positioning of some products is not clear enough, the application scenarios of robots are insufficient, similar products are crowded, the functions of robots are single, and the pain points solved are not clear enough; at the level of the scale of robot companies, the current leading companies are limited in scale, and compared with industrial robots , the overall revenue scale of leading service robot companies is relatively low.

To this end, we need to take measures from multiple angles:

First, we need to strengthen basic research, form an innovative ecosystem for core robotics technologies, and promote a virtuous cycle and development of technology and industry. We need to continue to conquer relevant core technologies to achieve autonomous control, and further conquer core key technologies such as intelligent perception, human-machine interaction, compliant control, operating systems, robot programming and simulation, system integration and application technology. Universities, research institutes and other units should closely integrate "production, learning, research and application" with robotics companies to work together to tackle key problems. Based on the characteristics of multidisciplinary cross-cutting and multi-field integrated development of robots, a variety of new models of "production, learning, research and application" transformation can be formed to accelerate the application transformation of cutting-edge innovative achievements.

Secondly, we should further play the leading role of leading robot enterprises and accelerate the application and promotion of products. We should give full play to the demonstration and leading role of leading enterprises, accelerate the construction of service robot scenarios such as medical health, community services, e-commerce unmanned delivery, unmanned vending, commercial cleaning and inspection, so that the innovation and development of related industries will have a larger market space. Focusing on the urgent needs in the fields of epidemic prevention and control, medical rehabilitation, special services, etc., establish a green channel mechanism for robot market access, simplify the bidding process, and shorten the approval cycle on the premise of meeting safety and quality. Strengthen regulatory norms, give priority to encouraging the listing and promotion of intelligent robot products that meet certain threshold conditions, and ensure the long-term and stable development of the robot industry.

Thirdly, we should strengthen talent cultivation in the field of robotics and explore new models of robotics education that integrate industry and education. In view of the professional fields that are urgently needed for robotics, we should strengthen the training of high-level professional talents with interdisciplinary and complex backgrounds, make innovative explorations in the establishment of robotics-related colleges and majors in colleges and universities, establish research platforms such as robotics innovation centers, and build a new model of robotics academic talent education. We should strengthen exchanges and cooperation between schools and enterprises in the field of robotics, break down the demand barriers between campus and the market, set up internship bases in leading and advantageous robotics companies, and improve the scale and quality of training for robotics application talents.

Finally, we should further strengthen the coordinated and stable development of the robot industry chain and supply chain to achieve independent and controllable industrial chain. Relying on the advantageous regions of my country's robot industry, mature park carriers and active capital intervention, we should promote the construction and development of robot public service platforms to provide comprehensive robot local supply, product certification and quality inspection services. We should give full play to the role of robot industry platforms and alliance associations, promote the efficient connection between universities, research institutes and other scientific and technological innovation entities and robot application companies, and promote collaborative innovation of the robot industry chain with problems and needs as the guide.